The Barricade
by Susan M. Garrett
Summary: A little Dickens, by way of a lonely French writer, can be a dangerous thing.
1. 1 The day we found the Frenchman

**TITLE: ** The Barricade (1/8)  


**AUTHOR: ** Susan M. Garrett  


**FEEDBACK: ** Abso-bloody-lutely.   


**PERMISSION TO ARCHIVE: ** Contact author for permission to archive.   


**CATEGORY: ** Drama, adventure.   


**RATING/WARNINGS: ** PG, possibly a wee bit R later, but not too much.   


**MAIN CHARACTERS: ** Everyone.   


**THANKS: ** To my betas Tree and Vita. Thank you for reading with the understanding that I take responsibility only for mistakes of misspelling and grammar. What the characters do and say is entirely up to them.   


**** 

**Chapter One - _The day we found the Frenchman_**

The hay was in, the corn not yet to be taken, and the sky was bright and blue, so we were on our own that day, me having milked the cow and done my chores before. Mama had said, "Take Em for some sun," which meant a day away from the cottage and sweeping floors and wiping down the bedsteads.

I carried Emmeline on my back down to the orchard end, where Henry and Peter and Robbie were fighting with wormy early apples. Cherry Louise was fighting too, but they paid her no mind because she was a girl, until she got Henry in the ear with a soft core that smooshed into his hair. Henry jumped on her and Robbie jumped on him - cause no one was apt to pound his sister 'lest it was him. They were all such _children_.

Took me some minutes to sort 'em all out and we finally fetched up on one of the best trees - the boys and Cherry in the branches and me at the base with Em, giving her near-ripe apples to bite into instead of the wormy ones she kept picking up.

"Could go down to the pond," said Peter. He sat up in the tree above me and swung his leg and I wished he wouldn't cause he had mud on his feet - I threw an apple at him to make him stop.

Henry made a face. "Nothing at the pond worth seeing. But maybe--"

Henry wasn't the sort to stop so short. I leaned back against the trunk, forgetting Em for a moment - Henry had good ideas sometimes. "What, Henry?"

"We could go and see the Frenchman."

"There's no Frenchman," said Peter crossly - he was angry at being kept from the pond, I guessed.

"A Frenchman? Really?" asked Robbie. He jumped down from the tree and I leaned forward enough to push him hard onto his bottom - he'd nearly landed on Em and she's no more than three summers old. He might have squished her.

"Really!" said Henry. "My da said there's a Frenchman in the old Morse cottage."

"Is he a spy?" asked Cherry, parting the leaves to peer at him through the branch on which she'd hidden herself.

"Spy!" I laughed and she hid herself again. She was seven and should know enough not to think such things. "We're not at war with France any more."

"We used to be," said Henry. "Grampa fought 'em at the 'Loo. Still got his sword and he let me touch it once."

We didn't know whether to believe the story about the sword, cause Henry was one to say things sometimes that weren't all true, but it was too good a story not to think about. And we'd all seen Henry's grampa in his uniform coat during fair, when the old men from the 'Loo got together and drilled . . . if they could still walk.

"Frenchmen have tails," said Henry.

"Do not," I protested. "Frenchman are like we are, 'cept they're French and they speak funny and we're English and speak rightly."

"Do so. Grampa said at the 'Loo they turned their tails and ran and he chased 'em. And he would know cause he was there."

We were quiet for a minute, thinking on this. Even if Henry stretched the truth a mite, his grampa was a real soldier and had been at the 'Loo and had even come back, which was more than my grampa or Peter's grampa had done.

"Frenchmen _might_ have tails," said Cherry Louise, still from within the leafy apple branch.

"They _do_." Henry dropped down from the tree and put his fists at his hips defiantly. "Let's go see the Frenchman - that'll prove it to you." And then he turned and looked at me. "Come on, Pol. When'll you get to see a Frenchman again?"

They all looked at me, then, 'cause I was the oldest, at nine years. Henry was a year younger than me, but he knew if I said we should go, the others would follow. Even Cherry peeked out from the branches.

I looked over at Em; being three, she'd never seen much of anything. And if we just _looked_ and we didn't get close, the Frenchman wouldn't hurt her. If nobody knew we were there, we couldn't get into trouble. And I still half believed that Henry was lying about there being a Frenchman at all.

But if was one there - would he have a tail?

"If we _look_," I said, glaring at Henry. "And we don't go near."

"The bushes are right up close to the cottage," said Henry. "He won't know that we're there."

"What happens if he finds us?" asked Peter, but he dropped from the tree anyway. "Will he eat us?"

There was a squeak from the branches above. "I don't want to be eaten by a Frenchman," said Cherry.

"Come on down," said Robbie, planting himself underneath the tree and holding his hands up - he was only six and Cherry was a year older, but he was always kind to his sister. "Cherry, I'd never let a Frenchman eat you. I'll kill him dead if he tried it."

"Would you, really?" she asked.

"Yep. Me and Henry. We'd use Henry's grampa's sword."

There was quiet for a moment as Cherry thought about it, then her bare feet and ankles appeared from the branches as she prepared to drop to the ground. "All right. I'll come to see the Frenchman, too."

"Come on, Polly," Henry pleaded.

I wanted to see the Frenchman, but I was supposed to be taking care of Em. If it was safe . . . .

"All right," I said. "But we're going to hide in the bushes and look and then run away."

Henry let out a whoop and started off to the Morse cottage at a run, with Peter close behind him. I picked up Em and set her on my back and followed as quickly as I could, Robbie and Cherry Louise staying close to me. 

It wasn't far to the old cottage, a crofter's home like ours which had gone vacant when old Morse had died - they'd not found a new family to tend it yet. I remember papa sitting by the hearth with mama, saying something about the land agent fixing it up in a hurry and that the old squire's son was down to look at it, but I was supposed to be asleep and couldn't ask then. I'd forgotten until Henry mentioned it, but still . . . why would there be a Frenchman at the cottage? Was he a prisoner? Were we at war with the French and no one had told me?

That sort of thing happened often enough. Since the new schoolmaster had chased all us girls from the school, I'd no reason to go to the village proper unless I was with mama and that wasn't but twice a month, especially with the hay harvest coming in. Most often there wasn't much new to be said about anything. You'd think somebody would have mentioned a war.

Henry and Peter were already down and crawling behind bushes. Catching up to them, I followed their example, although it was harder for me, being bigger, and I had to put Em on the ground. She was small enough to stand up and no one could see her over the bush, but she plopped right down, still chewing on an apple, so I left her alone. Cherry and Robbie stayed behind me.

"He's there," whispered Henry. "See?"

He moved back so I could look through the bushes. I took his place and parted the leaves with my hands.

The old Morse cottage _had_ been fixed - painted and thatched again and it even looked like there was real glass in the windows instead of oiled paper, which we could see because we were hidden at the side, near the very front. But it was the man in front of the cottage that Henry had talked about.

He didn't look French, seated on a bench and leaning back against the front wall of the cottage. He wore a white shirt with braces and brown trousers and was wearing shoes, like my papa, and a straw hat. There was a book on his lap, and even more on the bench beside him - he must be rich to have five whole books all by himself - and there was a pencil behind his ear. He looked funny to me, sorta sickly, and he wasn't old like I thought he'd be - but that's because I though of Frenchmen being old like Henry's grampa, cause they had fought at the 'Loo. In fact, he looked younger than the new schoolmaster did, and, I decided, sort of sad.

The others were also looking now, having parted the bushes around me.

"He doesn't _look_ French," whispered Peter.

"And what does a Frenchman _look_ like?" snorted Henry. "Like you would know?"

"They look just like us," I said softly, not even certain the words were mine. My eyes were on the books. Five whole books!

"He isn't French." Peter sat down on the ground and glared at Henry. "You're lying. He's not French at all. He's probably just the son of the land agent or a cousin or something."

"He _is_ too French." Henry's face was getting red - if he and Peter had been standing up, I think he would have jumped on Peter and trounced him. Instead, he peered over the top of the bushes and said, "I'm gonna talk to him."

I nearly jumped up, but remembered just in time that we were supposed to be hiding. "Henry, you can't! What if he _is_ French!"

"He'll eat you!" squealed Cherry. She hid her face in Robbie's shirt. "Robbie, don't let Henry get eaten by the Frenchman! Please!"

"I don't care," said Henry. "I'm gonna prove that he's French."

I reached out to catch hold of his leg and fell onto the grass - Henry had jumped up and dashed away. Afraid to watch, I still parted the leaves of the bush and peered out.

Henry could be quiet when he wanted; he'd caught a game hen on its nest last fall just by sneaking up on it, but we weren't supposed to talk about it because he might get in trouble for poaching. But he shared the eggs and mama never asked where they came from, so it was all right.

He ran through the grass to the side of the old Morse cottage, then crept along the bushes there till he was almost at the front. He waited at the corner - if he'd reached out his hand he could have touched one of the books. My heart was in my mouth when he straightened and then walked up to the Frenchman, who smiled when he saw him.

I hoped it wasn't a hungry smile.

"Are you French?" demanded Henry, fingers curled into fists and held at his hips.

"Yes," said the Frenchman - but he was speaking English. "I'm from Paris. Who are you?"

"I'm H-Henry."

"I can't look," whispered Cherry, beside me. "Is he going to kill Henry?"

I sighed and looked away from the Frenchman for a moment. "He isn't going to kill Henry," I told her. "He looks just like us. He's not a monster."

"Maybe he'll start eating Henry _before_ he kills him," offered Peter, still gazing through the hedge. "Oh, Pol, look!"

Fearing that the Frenchman might have picked up Henry and shoved him in his mouth whole, I didn't even bother to part the leaves. I popped my head up over the bush, then drew in a fearful breath - Em had wandered away and was walking around Henry, right to the Frenchman. She held out the nibbled apple in her hand as she approached him, saying, "Wan n'apple?"

Now _she_ was small enough to be eaten. I jumped up from behind the bushes and ran out, catching her around the middle and pulling her back just as the Frenchmen reached out his hand to take the apple from her. He had a look of surprise on him, like when you're running and fall and you come face to face with a hare and you've each just realized that the other one is there and you don't quite know what to do.

I hoisted Em up into my arms, spared a hand to tug down my dress over my knees, and stared back at him. He seemed harmless enough. And there were the books . . . .

"Do you have a tail?" asked Henry. "My grampa fought at the 'Loo and he said Frenchmen have tails."

The Frenchman laughed. "No, I don't have a tail." He looked back at me. "What's your name?"

Henry took a step forward, placing himself between me and Em and the Frenchman. "That's Polly. Em's her little sister."

"Emmeline," I corrected and Em squirmed in my arms, wanting to get down. I don't know where my voice had been, but now that I'd found it I wasn't going to let it get away again. "Are you really French?"

"Yes."

"What are you doing here?" asked Henry, his tone suspicious.

The smile left the Frenchman's face - I could see the sadness now as he seemed to struggle to find an answer. "Resting," he said, after a moment. "Just . . . resting."

There was a cane sitting by the side of the bench, with a gold grip at the top, and the wood of it was dark and smooth. Papa had used a cane - but not such a nice one - when the milk cow had stepped on him and broken his foot two autumns ago and many of Henry's grampa's friends from the 'Loo walked with canes when we saw them in the uniform coats at fair. Maybe the Frenchman had been hurt by a cow or had been in a war?

I put Em down on the ground and placed my hands on Henry's shoulders, moving him slightly to one side. "Are you a soldier?"

"No." He picked up the book from his lap and closed it, setting it aside. "I'm a writer," he said, with a sigh. "At least, I want to be a writer."

But it was enough that he had said the word. I knew that the others were here now, I could feel them - Cherry would be behind Robbie, but I heard Peter whispering to Henry behind my back. "Do you write . . . books?"

"I've written plays so far," he said, his eyes watching Em as she walked toward him, still trying to give him her apple. "But books . . . someday."

Plays were what we got to watch at fair, sometimes the puppets and sometimes people in strange clothes. For the Frenchman to have written plays . . . and to write _books_!

"You can read," I said very quietly, knowing that I had to be right.

He was smiling at Em, taking the apple and giving it back to her, which made her giggle. But he'd heard me and looked up. "Yes. Can't you?"

"My name," I admitted, in the same quiet voice. "And some words."

"She's not allowed at school," said Henry, with a laugh in his voice. "Mr. Harris says girls don't need to know such things and it's better if they don't."

My fingers curled into fists and I turned toward Henry, wanting to push him on the ground. "Mr. Harris will leave, just like the last schoolmaster did. And the next one will let me go to school. He _will_."

There was a touch at my hand - the Frenchman had leaned forward and caught hold of my fingers. I stared down at his hand and then looked up at him, suddenly wanting to run away and hide. But something stopped me. There was a look of anger in his face and I knew that he wasn't angry with me. "The schoolmaster won't allow girls in his classroom?"

I shook my head, unable to speak.

"Are you _certain_ you don't have a tail?" asked Henry, disappointed.

I withdrew my hand from the Frenchman's grasp when he looked toward Henry. Em had moved to the books. I picked her up and set her down on the other side of me to keep her from the things, for they were worth more than any money our papa could afford to pay for their damage. I was close enough to touch the cover of one, let my fingers rest upon it as I picked out the letters on the cover. A T-A-L-E O-F--

The Frenchman had been speaking to Henry and I heard Peter's voice, but my eyes were fastened on the gold letters embossed in the cover of the book, bright as the stars in the night sky.

"Polly?"

The Frenchman had spoken my name once, and then again. I started, suddenly realizing that he'd been speaking to me and drew my hand back from the book quickly in case he should have caught me at trying to find the sense behind the letters.

He picked up the book and held it in his hands. "A Tale of Two Cities," he said. "That's by Charles Dickens - he's an English writer. Do you know him?"

"I don't know any writers," I answered. "Except you. You're the first writer I've ever met."

He smiled - he had a nice smile. "He tells very good stories. This one is about an Englishman who gets caught by the revolution in France."

"I know," said Peter happily. "Mr. Harris told us. You don't have a king anymore because you were bad and chopped off his head!" At Cherry's horrified gasp, he added, "Well, they did! And they have an Emperor now, instead of a proper king. And that's why we're better."

The Frenchman laughed again. "You mustn't forget - the English chopped off the head of one of their own kings once, Charles the first. And you did it long before we did."

"Is that true?" Cherry asked the Frenchman, eyes wide. She turned to Robbie and asked again, "Oh, it isn't true, is it Rob? We would never do such a naughty thing."

"Grown-ups do naughty things all the time," Robbie informed her. "They can be very bad and they don't get punished. Isn't that right?"

He had addressed his comment to the Frenchman, who didn't reply right away. The laughter left his eyes for a moment and then he looked away. "Sometimes," he said quietly. 

I touched his arm and he looked up at me. "Could you read us the story?"

He seemed surprised. "Would you like to hear it?"

"Oh yes," said Henry, dropping immediately to the ground. "Especially if people's heads get chopped off."

"It's not only that," said the Frenchman. "There are people in prison, and costumes, and rescues--"

Peter had settled in beside Henry and tugged at bottom of Cherry's dress. "Come on, Cherry, he's going to tell us a story."

"Sit here, Polly," said the Frenchman, pushing aside the other books and clearing a space beside him. "You can look over my arm and see the words. They're in English," he promised.

I looked for Em and found her rolling her apple off the lintel of the cottage door - not too far away to keep out of trouble - then sat down on the bench beside him. He opened the book and there on the whiteness of the page were letters bunched together into words. It was dazzling, like crows against a sun-brilliant field of snow - I couldn't see how they could make any sense, even in English.

But he smiled at me, then looked back to the book. His finger dropped to the page, beneath the beginning of the first line of black letters, and he began, "It was the best of times--"

I do not think I breathed for at least an hour.

****

End of Chapter One

****


	2. 2 What I found in the cottage

****

**Chapter Two - _What I found in the cottage_**

His name was 'Jules.'

We found that out later in the day - I hadn't thought to ask, but he'd told us when Henry had continued to call him, 'Mr. Frenchman.' It must have been a Frenchified name, cause it sounded funny, but then Robbie remembered that there was a Mr. Julian Crowe that had passed through Shillingworth last year, so that was close enough.

The story in the book was just like he'd said - there was a lot about people getting their heads cut off and escaping from prison and things like that. Henry and Peter took to tussling now and again when there was a part they didn't much like, usually when Lucie was talking to Sydney Carton, and they would act out some of the fighting parts of the story even when there weren't really fighting parts.

Jules didn't seem to mind. He stopped reading to explain when Cherry or Robbie didn't understand something and reminded me to check on Em when she got tired of rolling the apple off the step and followed a butterfly off to the bushes. I would have noticed she was gone myself, but for the way the story went - it wrapped around my thoughts and made me all dizzy, like the cordial Mama gave me when I had a bad cough or the sniffles. That and it was very hard to follow the words printed on the page as Jules' finger moved past them. But if I concentrated real hard, I could manage well enough to start to make out the real sounds of the letters.

It was only when Jules stopped reading that I woke up from the story. He looked down at me and asked, "Polly, could you get me a drink? There's a bottle on the table inside--"

I'd jumped off the bench almost before he'd finished talking, feeling my cheeks go red for not thinking - of course he was thirsty, he'd been reading to us for forever! "I'll get it," I answered, then looked around for Em. She was pulling up blades of grass and using them to cover her apple.

"I'll watch Em," promised Henry. He'd just finished another wrestling match with Peter and moved closer to Em. "Jules, what's that thing you said, about people breaking up a cart and putting it in the street? Why would they break up a cart? Wouldn't they get in trouble?"

"Grownups never get in trouble," countered Robbie.

"It's called a 'barricade.' They'd break up carts, furniture, and used paving stones to make a wall of sorts, something to hide behind, to block off the streets from the soldiers."

"Our soldiers would never do something like that--"

I was half-listening to Henry as I walked into the cottage, but I stopped dead inside the door. The shutters had been just pulled, so inside it was mostly dark, but I could still see. And what I saw!

There was no fireplace or hearth like any other crofter's cottage, but a black metal stove, bigger even than the one in the schoolroom in town. The earth floor had been replaced with wood and over that was a carpet that looked softer than a baby chick's down; my bare feet sank into it as I headed toward the table. The candles there were beeswax - not tallow - and smelled like clean laundry. There was a bottle, as Jules had said, and a glass, and a basket of apples and bread and cheeses, some of which smelled awful funny, and real china plates and china cups, not even earthenware.

And there were books. More books! And paper and a pen and inkwell. There were drawings, too, like the pictures from schoolbooks, of buildings and things that didn't make much sense to me.

A popping sound startled me and I looked up, breathing hard, but it was only a coal in the stove. Beyond that was a wooden screen strung with silk that had a picture sewn into it, like a sampler but prettier and made with such stuff that it was shining in the few shreds of light that passed through the gap in the shutters. One time I'd looked in the tailor's window and there'd been something like that cloth on the table - the parson's sister had been buying it. I had wanted so much to walk over to it, to touch it and see if it felt as slick as it looked . . . .

But there was the bottle on the table and a glass and Jules was thirsty. So I pretended that my hands weren't shaking as I pulled the cork from the bottle and poured the liquid into the glass. It was a dark red and smelled like bitter-root, with that sharp smell like papa's malted beer. I touched my finger to it and tasted it, then spit it out and wiped my sleeve across my mouth - if that's what the French people had to drink, no wonder they wanted to go to war with us and steal our beer!

I took the glass in two hands and walked back to the porch, trying not to notice how soft the rug was beneath my feet, or think about how rich Jules would be to have such things. Were all French people rich like that? I wasn't sure I should ask him such a thing and mama had always told me not to say things if I wasn't sure about them.

Outside was so light that I stood in the doorway and blinked into the brightness. I heard a sound beside me - Jules was putting the book down on the bench as he looked at me. I held out the glass to him with both hands, afraid that I might drop it. He took it from me with a very soft, "Thank you," but he looked at me instead of the glass and he didn't drink from it right away.

My mouth was suddenly dry, drier even than his might have been from all that reading, and the burn from that red liquid still sat on my tongue. "We have to go home now," I heard myself say," stepping out into the dirt and grass and grabbing up Em by one arm. "We've got chores. Robbie, you'd best get Cherry home."

It was a feeling of not belonging that had struck me suddenly, a feeling that I shouldn't be in that place with rich things and that the others had better not either. Maybe Jules was French and maybe he wasn't and maybe he was born well above us or maybe he was a thief and had stolen it all . . . it wasn't for me to say. I just knew that wasn't a place we should be. Even with the books.

Oh, the books . . . .

"Don't go," said Jules, setting the glass on the bench and rising to his feet. At least, he tried - I saw him reach out for the cane, cause his leg looked a little stiff and he winced as he tried to put his weight on it. "Not yet - we haven't even finished the first book."

Em had started squalling as soon as I took her arm. I tugged her to her feet and then picked her up - she was pretty heavy for being three, but I managed. "We have to go," I said again, over the protests of Henry and Peter, while Robbie tried to rouse Cherry Louise from a nap.

"But you'll come back?"

I hadn't been able to look at him, but there was something in his voice, the same sort of tone Em used when she was scared of walking in a spot in the cottage where the firelight couldn't reach or that I'd heard from Henry when Peter had told him he'd be caught for poaching and hanged for taking the game hen. It was scared and sad and sorry and made me think of mama wrapping her arms around me and telling me that this new schoolteacher couldn't last forever. Perhaps Jules didn't have a mama. Perhaps he was too old, or his mama had died, like had happened to Peter's mama two winters back.

"We'll try," I said, trying not to promise because I was afraid and yet very much wishing that I could. There were those books sitting on the bench, so many books, and the sad sound in his voice . . . . 

"When?" He was on his feet now, leaning on the cane. "Tomorrow - could you come back tomorrow?"

"Can't we, Pol?" asked Henry eagerly. "There's more story - you can tell cause there's more book there. And if we get chores done early--"

He'd glanced at Peter, who added, "Yes, we can get done quick enough if we set our heads to it. And I can help Robbie and you can help Cherry if you get yours done."

I had started to back away, Em wriggling in my arms, not able to look Jules in the eyes - I was still too scared about the room with the soft carpet and the stove and the shining screen. "Maybe."

Jules reached behind him and picked up the book he'd been reading to us. He slid it between Em and me, so that it wouldn't fall. "There - take it and look over the part I read today. Then you can bring it back tomorrow and we can continue."

The book was heavy and smelled of new leather. Em twisted around to get her hands and - I feared - her mouth on it, so I had to put her down and juggle the book so it wouldn't fall in the dirt. I was suddenly aware that my hands weren't clean and yet I was holding the book. "I can't."

"Of course you can." Jules was smiling, retrieving Em's well-used apple to occupy her as he nodded toward me. "You can all come back tomorrow."

The only real thing was the soft leather of the book cover beneath my fingers. I tucked it under my arm, heard myself say, "All right," took Em's hand, and started off at as fast a pace as her little legs could manage. I didn't think to thank him or say anything more. There was only the book in my hand and, when I turned my head to see him sitting again on the bench, a sad look on his face as we left him.

"Wait'll I tell my grandpa," said Henry, as we hurried past the hedges and up to the stone bridge over the rill. "There's a Frenchman at Shillingworth and he didn't even know!"

"Maybe he'll get his sword," said Robbie, with wide eyes. "Do you think he'd try to kill Jules?"

Cherry covered her mouth with her hands, blocking off a little cry, as she stopped still in the dirt path. "Oh no! Pol, you mustn't let them hurt Jules!"

We all stopped. The cottage was hidden around a bend and by the edge of the orchard, but each of us turned in that direction, as if we could still see it.

"She's right, Pol," said Peter solemnly. "Henry's grandpa's still pretty angry about the 'loo. And my da' doesn't like the French much either. If they found out Jules was here . . . ."

We pondered the problem. "Somebody must know that he's here," I said, "because Papa said the land agent had the Morse cottage fixed and the squire's son came out to check on it."

"Maybe the land agent fixed the house for the squire's son or for one of the house staff. That's where old Morse had come from, after being groundskeeper all those years." Henry put his hands on his hips and glared at me. "Maybe he's not supposed to be here. Maybe he's a spy after all. And don't say he can't be a spy, Pol, cause he's French and he _could_ be."

"He could be hiding," said Peter, picking up a blade of grass from along the edge of the road and twisting it in his hands as he stared down at it. "Maybe they were chasing him and he hurt his leg and that's where he's hiding until he gets better. Couldn't that be what happened?"

They were looking at me, all except Em, who was trying to climb the side of the rock bridge to see over into the rill. I lifted her up to stand at the top of the stone and held her around the waist while I thought about the problem. I was the oldest - I had to find an answer.

"It might be better if we didn't tell anyone about Jules being at the cottage," I said, after a long pause. "Em won't say anything. I can hide the book. And we can just say we were out at the orchard, 'cause that's true, we _were_. It wouldn't really be lying."

Peter was usually the hard head - if he didn't think of an idea, it couldn't be any good. But even he nodded in agreement. "I suppose we could ask Jules tomorrow. But what're we supposed to do if he's a spy, Polly? We'd have to tell somebody, wouldn't we?"

And even as I admitted that as good and loyal subjects of the Queen, we'd have to tell somebody . . . I knew we'd have to find a way to help Jules escape first.

****

End of Chapter Two

**** 


	3. 3 When there was a visitor

**** **Chapter Three - _When there was a visitor_**

Em was feeling poorly the next morning; she wouldn't eat her porridge and mama thought it best to keep her inside. As that meant I'd probably have to stay in as well to watch her, I was a bit worried, but mama decided I might get her some of the early apples from the orchard for a pie and for some sauce. Of course, mama meant that I should do that later in the day . . . .

I put on my best shift, combed my hair, and put the book in a burlap satchel I would use to bring back the apples. I slipped away before Em could see me, or mama could change her mind. It wasn't late enough in the morning for the others to have finished their chores, but at least I could get to the cottage before they did and ask Jules if he really was a spy.

The sun hadn't been up for very long and the grass was still wet with dew - the bottom of my shift slapped against my legs and stuck to me as I ran down the dirt path, over the stone bridge, and through the orchard to reach the Morse cottage. It was only when I saw the cottage ahead of me that I slowed, but still walked forward.

The shutters, which had been barely open the day before, now were wide apart enough to let out the lamplight from inside. There were two windows on the protected side of the cottage, the side close to the orchard, and it was through these that I could see someone moving inside.

The someone was _not_ Jules.

I snuck up to the window and hid below it. The glass was not so thick that I couldn't hear some of what was being said.

"--Healing well enough," said Jules.

"Miss Rebecca said the doctor--"

"Rebecca isn't here. And I'm not an invalid."

There was a pause, long enough for me to get curious and peer over the windowsill. Jules was sitting in a chair at the table, his head in his hands. There were several covered baskets on the table and more bottles. The other man who had been speaking seemed to be unpacking the baskets, but when he looked down at Jules, there was something sad and maybe worried in his expression. He had very dark hair and a funny sort of beard, not a proper beard like my papa.

When he spoke again, his voice was quieter. "They will be returning with the Aurora soon - it will only be a week more before you will be safe. And then, if it is your wishing, I will be taking you back to Paris."

"That's _exactly_ what I wish," growled Jules, still not looking up.

The man with the odd beard picked up a loaf of bread from the basket and held it in his hands, as if weighing it. "Miss Rebecca and Master Fogg, they will not disrespect your wishes and come here unless you tell them they can. But they are wanting to see you greatly."

"I know." Jules' voice was much softer, so that I strained to make sense of his words. "But I can't. Not now, Passepartout. Not after . . . not now. Maybe not ever. I don't know."

The man with the odd beard looked up - for a moment I thought he had seen me, so I ducked down beneath the windowsill again. I waited and counted on my fingers to ten, then took a breath and peeked through the window again. I saw Jules, still sitting at the table, but the man with the odd beard was no longer there.

Before I could move, someone grabbed me from behind and lifted me up. "Here you are - a little spy, no?"

"I'm not a spy," I yelled. "Put me down! Jules! Help! Put me down!" 

Kicking as hard as I could, I made the man holding me tip back into the wall. I lowered my head and bit his hand, hard enough to make him let me go - which he did, with a loud yell. I slid on the grass, then scrambled to my feet, turning to face him.

It was the man with the odd beard. I had messed up his tie and his jacket was pushed back from his shoulders. He was favoring his hand and glared at me, eyes shining. "I am thinking . . . you are _not_ being . . . from the League of Darkness?" he said, words falling out between panted breaths.

I ran from him and nearly knocked Jules from his feet; he was rounding the corner with his cane. He grabbed my arm to steady himself and stared at me. "Polly? What are you doing here now?"

"We thought you might be a spy and might need to get away before Henry's grandfather killed you with his sword, 'cause he was at the 'Loo and hates Frenchmen. So if you are a spy, we have to tell someone, but we want you to get away first and I didn't want any of the others to get into trouble and you aren't a spy, are you really?"

I wasn't able to stop once I'd started and finished my explanation breathlessly, watching Jules' face and hoping that he wouldn't suddenly turn into a spy. Instead, he smiled and looked over my head toward the bearded man, who was limping toward us. "It's all right, Passepartout. This is Polly, one of the children from the crofter's cottages."

"She is a little young to be evil for the League," agreed Passepartout, his palm clasped firmly over the side of his right hand. "But she has the teeth of a beaver." And he followed that explanation by sucking back his lips and pretending that his two front teeth were very long.

I laughed - he seemed so silly. Jules gestured toward Passepartout with his cane. "Polly, this is my friend, Passepartout."

"I'm sorry I bit you," I explained, as we went back into the cottage. "But you scared me."

"It is not Passepartout's intention to be scaring young ladies," he answered. "But there are very bad peoples looking for Master Jules. And we must be sure he is safe here."

I looked at Jules and caught him making some sort of gesture to Passepartout, like he didn't want him to talk about something. "It's okay - we can take care of Jules. Henry and Peter are almost big enough to plow by themselves, Robbie is a really good kicker and Cherry can throw apples. And if you think I can bite, you should see Em!"

Passepartout winced and removed a handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket as I was speaking, then wound it around his hand. "I am not looking forward to be making the acquaintance of this 'Em.'"

"She's an infant," said Jules, and when that didn't seem to make Passepartout any happier, he held his hand up from the floor at Em's height. "About this big."

"I am thinking English children with strong teeth may be a very good weapon," said Passepartout. He went back to the table and removed more bread from the basket, then looked down at me. "You are hungry, yes? I have been bringing food for Master Jules, but I think he would share."

The bread -- and things in the basket that didn't look like any bread I'd ever seen --smelled wonderful. I pressed the burlap satchel against my stomach to hide the growl. "I'm not hungry," I lied, hoping that my stomach would stay quiet; I'd run out of the house so quickly that I'd not even gotten to have porridge. "And I don't want to take Jules' food."

Passepartout brightened and looked up at Jules. "She says your name in a funny way, no? It is the accent." Then he walked behind me, pulled a chair from the table, and he gestured for me to sit at it. "Master Jules has not been eating much and I am thinking he does not like to eat alone. So if you are eating, then he will be eating and that would please Passepartout."

I wasn't sure exactly what Passepartout had said, but it would have been bad manners not to sit down. I put the burlap bag on the table and took out the book, which I handed to Jules. "I tried to read it, like you said, but some of the words are very hard."

"What did you have trouble with? Let me see."

Jules opened the book and I pointed out words to him, as Passepartout placed china before us, poured milk into real glasses, and set out some of the breads he had brought with him, as well as salted butter. He gave me a cup of tea with sugar and milk just like I was grownup, without even asking.

But then Jules took my attention back to the book, asking me to read him some words. I didn't even know that Passepartout was there for most of the time, but heard a clink as a glass was moved or a whisper when he tied a napkin around my neck, the fine cloth better then my shift and even better than mama's other dress, the best one. I was careful not to soil it, but Jules was very messy, dropping crumbs on the book as he pointed out a word on the page. I wiped off the crumbs very carefully, but he seemed not to notice, making me read a page aloud again and correcting me.

It seemed to me that I had been reading aloud for a very long time without Jules making any corrections when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up at Passepartout, who carefully lowered my book enough for me to see Jules asleep, his head resting on his hands on the tabletop.

"He has not been sleeping," said Passepartout softly, as he untied the napkin from my neck, then pulled out the chair for me. "Better for you to come back later with your friends, yes? Now, you will show Passepartout back to the road?"

There was no reason to answer - Passepartout herded me out of the cottage, with an empty basket on his arm the same way Peter's dog would work the sheep in the far meadow. I had to run back inside to get my burlap bag for the apples and once I explained what it was for, Passepartout said getting apples was a good idea and had me take him to the orchard so that he could get some, too.

The early morning sun had dried the dew from the leaves and branches, so I shinnied up one of the better trees and looked for ripe apples, while Passepartout waited with his basket below. I had seen him carefully close the shutters on the cottage and pull a string through the door - he said it was a lock so no one would get in to disturb Jules.

"Why would anyone want to hurt Jules?" I asked, peering down at him through the leaves. "Is he a spy?"

"Master Jules?" Passepartout chuckled and caught the apple I dropped for him. "No, he is a writer. And a very, very smart man. A genius of very great thoughts. And a student of law, sometimes. But not a spy."

"Then why is he hiding here?"

"There is a bad man who has offered money to other bad men if they will find Master Jules and kidnap him. We did not know this until they almost had Master Jules and he was hurt in escaping with us, so he is hiding here until he gets well. And until my master and Miss Rebecca can stop the bad men who are looking for Master Jules."

I climbed a little higher into the tree, the apples up above were riper, and considered his explanation. "Is he a rich man? Is that why the bad men want him?"

"Rich? No, Master Jules has no money." Passepartout laughed again. "He is rich in the head, in ideas. They want his ideas. The bad men want him to make bad things, instead of good things."

"He's very clever," I agreed, dropping an apple down through the leaves. A second apple slipped from my hand, but Passepartout caught it easily, two in one hand, then dropped the basket and picked up a third apple. I had seen jugglers at the fair before, but none that made it look so easy - the apples sailed through the air in a circle. He reached his headforward to take a bite from an apple and then spit it out with a grimace. "Too much worm," he said, "not enough apple."

I had seated myself on the tree branch and watched and clapped and laughed until he finally bowed, swept up the basket and pointed to the tree. "We will be needing more apples. I am thinking to make a pie for Jules."

There were more than enough apples ripe enough for my mama and for Passepartout's pie. When I'd filled his basket and my bag, I climbed out of the tree and realized with surprise just how many I'd taken.

Passepartout must have seen the frown on my face, because he asked, "Did you hurt yourself?"

"No. It's just that - these aren't really our apples," I admitted. "They belong to the old squire's son. And mama said that he didn't seem to mind if we took a few now and then, but we daren't take too many because these are his trees and that would be stealing."

"I do not think he would mind too much," said Passepartout. Leaning closer to me, he added softly, "And he does not think too much of apples."

I looked at him, a glimmer of hope stirring. "He doesn't like them, you mean?"

"He will eat them when he has them, but he does not think too often of them," said Passepartout, which totally confused me.

"Oh." I shrugged, took hold of my bag, and then led him back to the dirt road. "Just so long as he doesn't mind. Mama would be cross if she thought there was going to be trouble."

Passepartout walked beside me, even though his legs were longer and he could have taken much larger steps. "You and your friends, you will continue to see Jules? Because he has been very sad with very dark thoughts. When he told me of the children who visited him yesterday, he smiled. He does not smile so much now. It would be better if he smiled. And ate. And slept. So if you should eat with him and make him laugh and make him tired, this would be a very good thing for him. And for Passepartout."

We had reached the bridge. I stopped for a moment and leaned against the stone wall, looking up at Passepartout with a sigh. "We'd like to play with Jules, but . . . we have chores. Mama doesn't even know about Jules or that I took Em to see him - she'd be cross if she did. If Jules is in hiding, we can't tell anyone, can we? And it's harvest soon and the boys have school and--"

Passepartout rested the basket of apples on the stone wall, balancing it carefully. "Master Jules said that the schoolmaster will only teach the boys. This is true?"

"It's true," I admitted, trying not to appear too glum. "Mister Dickey taught all of us, but he went to Shropshire to be nearer his family. When the new master arrived, he made all of us girls leave; he wouldn't even let us in the schoolroom. He said girls who learned to read caused trouble."

There was a strange look on Passepartout's face, as if he were trying very hard not to smile. "This schoolmaster does not know Shillingworth very well, I am thinking." He placed a hand on my shoulder and nodded. "Passepartout will see what we can do - perhaps your families will let you see Master Jules when the right words are whispered in the right ears."

I knew that between the boys' lessons and the chores that awaited us, we couldn't spend time with Jules and get everything done, but I smiled, like I believed him. I pointed the way for him and watched Passepartout swing the basket of apples as he traveled down the path, humming a song beneath his breath. I hoped Jules wouldn't be too disappointed when we couldn't come to see him again. 

But then, I had only met Passepartout and hadn't known him very well.

****

End of Chapter Three

**** 


	4. 4 I hear something scary

****

**Chapter Four - _I hear something scary_**

That afternoon I met the others at the cottage and, as Passepartout had said, we had a luncheon of bread and cheese and cold meats with Jules, while he read to us. Some of the cheese was very stinky and most of us wouldn't eat it, but Cherry Louise liked it spread on cut apples - Jules showed her how to eat it like that and I could tell she thought herself very grownup because of it. After we'd eaten and Jules had read some more, Henry talked him into taking a walk with us through the orchard to see where he had caught the game hen the year before. Jules liked the orchard. When Peter mentioned the pond, Jules said it was too late in the day to go there today, but perhaps we could go there tomorrow.

Henry and the others thought it was a very good idea, but I stayed quiet; tomorrow was laundry day and Em and Cherry and I would be busy helping our mamas. Plus the boys had their lessons after their morning chores tomorrow, so none of us would be able to come. But none of them seemed to remember and I didn't want to remind them - Jules seemed so happy that we would go out to the pond the next day that I didn't want him to be disappointed right then. The boys could stop by his cottage on the way to school in town tomorrow and tell him.

When I came home, Mama was happy enough that Em seemed well and that she'd gotten most of her cleaning and the pies done that she didn't ask me too many questions about where I'd been during the day. I'd been careful not to eat too many apples in the orchard, so I made a good show of eating stew when papa came home for late dinner, before he went out to bed down the oxen and the horses for the night. I had the feeling that he was watching me as I ate, so I kept my head down and my eyes on my trencher. Em made more than enough noise for the two of us but Papa kept looking at me, and then back up at Mama. It was only as I was helping Mama to clear the table that Papa sat back in his chair and lit up his pipe.

"You'll not guess who came by the field today," he said to Mama, although it was said in such a way that I was obviously meant to overhear. "The land agent."

Mama froze, a trencher in one hand and a stew ladle in the other - a visit from the land agent was never good news. "What did he want? It's nearly full-harvest, he can't be expecting rents yet--"

Papa waved his pipe in her direction as if to calm her and I slunk back into the shadow of the fireplace, in case I wasn't supposed to hear. "Nothing so bad as that. The tenant they fixed up the old Morse place for, seems he's a sort of teacher. McIver up at the big house sent word that the man's con-va-les-cing--" Papa pronounced the word carefully, in pieces, like he was proud of himself for using it, "but that he's offered to handle lessons for the young ones until harvest as his rent." Papa's gaze found me in the shadows. "Seems he's willing to take on the girls, too. Means the children will have more time for lessons, if they don't have to go down to Shillingworth and back."

"What about the new schoolmaster?" Mama had taken the trencher and ladle back to the scrub bin and begun scraping it out with sand - there was an easier set to her shoulders now that she knew the land agent wasn't interested in the rent yet. "He'll have something to say about that, won't he?"

"Land agent said he'd left . . . in a hurry, too. Someone from the big house sent 'em packing quick enough. No word as to why." Papa took a long draw from his pipe, then let the smoke out in an easy fashion, still watching me. "I expect we'll find some use in it, being that it'll take the parish a bit to find a new teacher and what with it being harvest soon enough. The land agent said we've not got to pay any for the lessons, but he did say the squire's son wanted all the children as could be spared to attend - probably wants to make the most out of the rent he's being owed on that cottage."

It was Mama's turn to search for me in the shadows, her head tilting just to one side. There was a look in her eye that made me think she knew what had happened. But as I stayed quiet, she just considered me for a bit and then sighed. "I can spare Polly for the noon, if we can get an early start on the laundry. What to do about Em, though--?"

I made a sound, ready to promise that Jules wouldn't mind having Em there . . . but remembered in time that I wasn't supposed to know anything about Jules or the Morse cottage.

"You have something to say, Pol?" asked Papa.

I swallowed and stepped out from the shadows and into the firelight. "Mister Dickey didn't mind Em much, not in the mornings during recitation," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "Maybe the new teacher won't mind, either?"

The end of the pipe disappeared in Papa's beard and he took another long draw from it, the smoke curling up and over his shoulder. "Maybe," he echoed, still watching me. "Just to be sure, you ask tomorrow when you go. I'm not wanting to get on the wrong side of the squire's son, not this close to harvest and rent. You ask, Polly, and you ask in a nice way."

"I will," I promised, hoping neither Papa nor Mama could hear my heart beating hard in my chest - I felt like I'd just run a race. I finished the dishes, help Mama change Em into her nightclothes, then tumbled onto my straw tick and stared up at the firelight casting shadows on the ceiling. Jules would get to read to us every day, just as Passepartout had wanted. And the new schoolmaster was gone!

It seemed wrong to have so many nice things happen at once and I worried about that - Papa often said to be careful when too many good things happened, cause a bad thing might be hiding in the bushes. But each day we went to the Morse cottage and saw Jules. Some days he read to us, and on others we walked to the orchard or the pond and we talked about animals, or weather, or history. He told us all about the English king who'd had his head chopped off and didn't mind that Cherry Louise held her hands over her ears when he talked about it. We did sums too, of course, but mostly Jules talked. He'd been to America, he said, and I know Henry wanted to call him a liar, until he started talking about steamboats and Indians and cowboys and outlaws and Henry forgot to pretend that he didn't believe Jules. Every other day or so, Passepartout arrived with a basket not only of food, but also of slates and chalk and paper and pencils so we could practice our writing. He and Jules would act out some of the things Jules talked about, like wars and things . . . there was a lot of laughing while we ate cheese and bread and apples, and drank bottles of milk kept cool by stoppering them and lowering them into the pond. For once I dreaded Sunday, for there was service to attend and no school nor chores but common things that day, but even then Mama sent me to Jules' cottage with a pie to thank him for the lessons. I found that Henry and Robbie's families had also sent pies or conserves, and Peter's da sent him over a bit of smoked ham, so we saw Jules in any case and he read more of the book.

I had gotten good enough at reading that sometimes Jules would have me come early to read to him what he had read to us from the story the day before, just for practice. It was one of these mornings, late into the second week, that Passepartout arrived before noon. I didn't see him at first and neither did Jules, for my attention was on the book and Jules walked back and forth across the cottage listening, by now without his cane because he was walking so much better.

"You are reading very well, Miss Polly," said Passepartout, taking off his hat and bowing to me as he entered, as if I were a lady. He had started to do that and it always caused me to giggle. As he straightened, he nodded at Jules, "And your leg is good; you are walking much better."

Jules took a step toward Passepartout and glanced down at his foot, as if studying it. "The tendon isn't as tight and I can walk on it easily enough. I've had a twinge in it this morning, though."

"That is because it will be raining tonight or tomorrow." Passepartout placed his hand on Jules' shoulder. "Such things happen with hurts in the muscle and the bone - you will not be needing a barometer any longer to be knowing when the storm is to happen."

There was, in that instant, a message that seemed to pass between them. I had been watching and listening, saw and heard nothing, but the smile fell from Jules' face and he took a step backward, turning away from Passepartout's grip on his shoulder. "They're back, aren't they?"

Passepartout seemed instantly as grim, his lips in a tight line as he nodded, although Jules was not looking at him to see it. "It is done, yes."

"Did they say . . . how many?"

"It is not--" When Jules turned to face him, Passepartout stopped as if he had been struck, paused to collect himself, and said finally, "I was not asking."

I sunk lower in my chair, suddenly very happy that I wasn't being noticed, not with Passepartout looking so grim and Jules so . . . was he angry? I'd never seen him really angry.

"You're saying that I shouldn't ask?" Jules ran his hands through his hair as if distracted. "That I have no _right_ to ask, no right to know how many people have been killed to protect me?"

"I think," said Passepartout quietly, "that there are things it is better not to know. And better not to ask. And that this is a one."

Jules hands were clenched into fists at his side. "They had no right to do this. None. I said I didn't want--"

"And they should instead find you dead? Or know you have been taken away to a place not to be found?" Passepartout took a step toward Jules, his spine straight as he pointed a finger. "You would want them to suffer that instead? You do them injury, Jules, you do, in thinking that doing this is easy for them. It is not. They do this thing not only because of who you are, but because of _who_ you are. It is a scary thing to think those evil people should control you and make you dream such terrible dreams, give them such awe-filled power--"

"But I'd never--!"

"No, you wouldn't. Not ever. Not if you couldn't. Not if you were dead." Passepartout paused and his words seemed to sink in - Jules was suddenly very pale. "There are people who are thinking that would not be a bad thing, that you be dead. But Miss Rebecca and Master Fogg are not among them. Nor is Passepartout." He took a step closer to Jules. "You know they would do everything else they could before they are hurting peoples, even bad peoples."

"I never _asked_ for this."

"No one has been saying that you did. None of us has been asking for this. But it is here. And it has been done. You cannot be blaming them for this."

"I don't blame them. I don't blame you, Passepartout. I don't blame any of you . . . any of you." Jules sank down onto a chair at the table and placed his head on his arms, hiding his eyes. "It hurts too much to think about it. Take me home, Passepartout. Take me back to Paris."

"I cannot, not yet--" he added, when Jules looked up quickly. "She will not be ready until tonight. I should not have left her now; there is much to fix, much to do. Master Fogg will come tonight. He will bring you to where she is moored. If you wish it, neither Master Fogg nor Miss Rebecca will make the journey to Paris. But Master Fogg will come here tonight. And I am not stopping him."

There was a look on Jules' face, like he was ready to fight, but he suddenly seemed very tired, his eyes half-closing as he turned away. "Tell Fogg . . . I'll be waiting." And then, just as suddenly, he noticed me, as if for the first time since Passepartout had entered even remembered that I was there. Jules sat up in the chair as if it took a great, physical effort and smiled sadly. "I have to leave now, Polly. No more lessons, I'm afraid. Will you tell the others?"

I hadn't understood all that was said between Passepartout and Jules - most of it hadn't made sense. But 'Fogg' was the name of the old squire and his son. With the squire dead, it was the son who held Shillingworth. Was this the 'Fogg' Jules was so angry with? Was this that man who would come and take him away?

I was thinking, trying to make sense of what was said. When I looked at Passepartout, I saw that he was watching Jules. And Jules was watching me. I was still holding the book open - he leaned across the table, placed his hands over mine and closed the book, then sat down in the chair again. "You may keep that one. You're reading very well now - you should read to the others. The new schoolmaster will help you."

I pushed the book away and across the table - the soft leather felt like it burned my fingers. "You're going away."

I hadn't meant the sniffle to get in there. I _hadn't_.

Jules rested his fingers on the book and slowly pushed it back towards me. "I don't want to go, Polly. But I must."

"When will you come back?"

"To Shillingworth?" When I nodded, Jules looked up at Passepartout, who raised an eyebrow as if he had the same question. Jules looked down at the table and the book beneath his fingers. "Never. I'm not coming back." I must have sniffled again, because Jules looked up at me, his eyes wide. "I don't want to leave you and the others. You must believe me."

"Then don't leave." I grabbed half of the book and tugged on it, as if holding it could keep him there. "Stay with us. You know ever so much more than the schoolmasters we've had. And you laugh - they never laugh. And you listen. Don't you want to stay, Jules?"

"I do," he said, and in such a tone of voice that I believed him - he sounded like he might sniffle. "I'm just . . . I'm tired. I have to leave. And when I leave, I can't come back. I won't come back--"

I let go of the book - I wasn't a thief, after all -- and ran out of the cottage. I heard Jules call my name, but I didn't stop. The sniffles turned into tears. I was angry because Jules was leaving, but I wasn't angry at him. It wasn't _his_ fault, he didn't want to leave . . . he'd said so. He had to leave. That's what he said.

And the squire's son was coming to get him, to make him leave. The squire's son was turning him out of the cottage.

I slowed down, then stopped and fetched up against the length of an apple tree as I started thinking about it. Mama and Papa had talked about such things before, about people getting turned out of their cottages and having to leave. Most often it was said in whispers, about a bad harvest or an accident or a mistake and rent not being paid. After Peter's mama had died, Peter's da was drinking more ale than he should have and slept when he should have been working - they almost got turned out. My Papa had a few coins put away and gave them to Peter's da, on condition he stop sleeping and do more than his share of the harvesting. It was a near thing, Mama had said.

Hearing the way Mama had said it had scared me; it made me swear that I wouldn't pretend to be asleep and listen to Mama and Papa talk at night . . . well, almost. I was extra nice to Peter, then, and helped him with his lessons at school and tied his muffler when it got cold, until he hit me with a snowball and things were back as they were supposed to be. But I was still scared.

Had that been what had happened to Jules? He'd been hurt, his leg hadn't been right, but he'd gotten better, so he couldn't have worked to make the rent like Papa and the others did. Papa thought Jules was teaching us to earn his rent, but I knew better - Jules was teaching us because he liked to teach us and they'd sent away the new schoolmaster. There were all the pretty things in the cottage that he could sell, but those things might not belong to him. Sort of the way our milk cow - Abigail - belonged to the manor and we sent some of the butter and cheese from her up there because of it. We could never sell Abigail because she wasn't ours to sell. It might be the same with the pretty things. Even the books.

I swallowed at the thought of the book he'd let me take home, how he'd wanted me to take it. Better that I didn't - if it didn't belong to him he'd have been in trouble, and then he'd not only be turned out of the cottage but maybe even put in jail!

That made me want to cry again, but I didn't. I fought back my sniffles and tried hard to concentrate. Papa always said that people got out of trouble by thinking and that's what I was going to do. I was going to have to think of a way to help Jules, a way to stop him from leaving.

But I knew that whatever I thought, I was going to need help.

****

End of Chapter Four

**** 


	5. 5 Henry has an idea

**** **Chapter Five - _Henry has an idea_**

I couldn't count on the others coming through the orchard proper, but I knew that they'd have to use the stone bridge to get over the rill. Shillingworth Magna usually had more than its share of summer storms - or so my papa said - and this year had been no exception. The rill was nearly a full-fledged stream and crossing without the bridge until mid-winter would be impossible. If I waited at the bridge, I'd catch them before they went to Jules' cottage and hopefully miss Passepartout. Somehow, I knew he'd try to stop us from doing . . . whatever we were going to do.

By running from the orchard to the bridge, I caught Henry and Peter just as they came up to it; Robbie had already chased Cherry Louise across. They waved when they saw me, but when they _really_ saw me they ran to meet me. I stopped and rested my hands on my knees, half-bent over and breathless when they approached.

"Pol, what's up? What's happened?" asked Peter, patting me on the back as if that would help.

"Leave 'er be," called Henry, a step or two behind him. "Have you come from Jules? Is he sick?"

Cherry Louise let out an alarmed squeak at Henry's words. I had enough sense in me to shake my head, even as Robbie added, "We can run back and fetch some cordial if he's taken a chill. My mama's got the best - even the doctor said so, last time Cherry took a cough."

"J-J-Jules--" I sputtered, and that was enough to stop them all -"Jules is going away. He's leaving - Shillingworth Magna."

I looked up to see the shock on their faces. Henry shook his head and frowned at me, as if he was certain I was lying. "Perhaps so, Polly, but he'll come back--"

"He's not coming back. Ever." I swallowed, watching Henry's face grow red. "He told me. He's never coming back."

I wasn't ready - Henry launched himself at me and before I knew it he'd knocked me to the ground. I was all knees and flailing arms, trying to push him off me as he shouted, "What did you do? What did you do to make him leave?"

It was Peter who pulled him off. Robbie helped me to my feet and Cherry Louise was crying.

"I didn't do anything!" I would have hit Henry, but Robbie held onto my arm, just as Peter kept pushing Henry back. "Jules says he wants to stay with us, but he can't. They're making him leave the cottage. The squire's son is coming tonight to turn him out and take him away!"

It took some time for the words to sink in, but I knew Henry understood as soon as he stopped fighting Peter. Robbie let go of me and Cherry Louise had ceased sobbing and was down to sniffles. We stood there, staring at each other, knowing just what those words meant.

No one would ever take a hand against the land agent - it was unthinkable. There were stories about other places where such a thing had happened and people had been run off the land, burned out, some even jailed or killed. The squire - or his son - well, he was second to the Queen, God Bless Her. You'd as sooner hit the bishop as even think about standing up against the squire.

Or his son.

"We have to do something," pleaded Cherry Louise. She looked from me, to Henry, and back to me again. "We can't let him turn Jules out. We _can't_!"

Her voice ended in a wail. Robbie put his arms around her and hugged her. Henry, Peter, and I just looked at each other. She was still a little girl, she didn't understand.

"What _can_ we do?" asked Peter.

There was a note of hope in his voice, like he thought I might have an answer. But he hadn't said the whole question - what could we do . . . that wouldn't hurt our families? Anything we did might lead to the squire's son and the land agent turning our people out from their cottages.

My stomach twisted and my insides got cold. What would mama and papa do? What would they say? And poor Em! With winter coming on, where could they go? The workhouse might take them, but they'd make papa go to one place and mama to another. If Em and me were lucky, the parish orphanage would care for us . . . but we'd never see mama and papa again.

"There's room in our cottage," said Peter. "Jules could live with us. 'da wouldn't mind, 'specially if they took Jules on as the new schoolmaster."

Henry shot Peter a scornful look. "If they took him on as the new schoolmaster, they'd give him a place to live or let him board in Shillingworth proper, same as Mr. Dickey had done." 

I just looked away; Peter's cottage was empty because of his mama's passing and Peter's 'da wasn't in the best of moods at times. "Besides," I shook my head, thinking aloud, "the squire's son isn't sending the land agent - he's coming personally. And I think . . . I think there's been bad blood between him and Jules. Don't know what it's about," I said quickly, seeing the question already in Henry's expression, "but I half think Jules is more leaving because he doesn't want to deal with the squire's son."

"It's probably a woman," said Robbie. When I stared at him, he said defensively, "It's what my 'da would say. And that time would heal it, cause there's always another woman come along."

"But we don't _have_ time," I protested. "We've only got till evening, then the squire's son is coming for him."

"What if we stop the squire's son from taking Jules?" asked Henry.

It was as if lightning had struck among us. I looked down at the ground and shifted my feet; the thought scared me and I didn't want to look at the others. 

There was a word the parson had used at service - I'd asked Mr. Dickey about it when he was still schoolmaster - and that's what this sounded like, at least likewise the way the parson had tried to tell me about 'heresy.' Heresy was a sin, talking against the teachings of the church, and it was just as bad as being a traitor, when you talked against the Queen. What Henry had said sounded like both at once.

"Well, what if?" pressed Henry, in such a loud voice that I was forced to look up at him. 

"We'd be turned out," answered Peter. "Henry, you know that. All of us and our families would get turned out for sure!"

"At harvest?"

Henry's voice sounded the same as when Peter tried to tell him there was a ghost in the orchard - sure that he was speaking the truth. And, when I thought about it, I began to see some sense in his thinking. "Henry . . . might be right," I said slowly, considering the situation. "I've never heard of anybody being turned out at harvest. And anything that happened right before harvest - being nobody was killed or there wasn't rent missing or fire - usually gets forgotten after, or not seen to be so big. Like Robbie's 'da says, time would heal it."

"We'd still get a wailing," said Robbie. "Us boys, anyway. I don't know if they'd switch you girls." And he studied Cherry, as if trying to decide whether or not that was fair.

"Oh, we'll get smacked, all right," I promised, but was immediately sorry when I saw Cherry's eyes begin to fill with tears.

"I don't want to get smacked," she cried.

"Do you want the squire's son to turn Jules out? Do you?" 

With Henry staring at her, Cherry Louise could do nothing but pick up the corner of her smock, showing her drawers while she wiped her eyes, until Robbie pulled the edge of the smock from her and pulled it down.

"Right," said Henry, as if we had all decided on something. "The problem is, how do we stop him from turning out Jules?"

Peter looked at me, as if waiting for me to tell Henry that he was crazy. When I remained quiet, he screwed up his nose like he did when he had important things to think about. "Well . . . maybe we could hide Jules."

I hiked myself up on the edge of the stone bridge and sat there, as did the others. "No, Jules wouldn't do that. Like I said, I think he'd leave to miss seeing the squire's son."

"So what if the squire's son couldn't see him?" said Robbie, as he tried to help Cherry Louise sit up on the wall. He grabbed her waist, but it took Peter's help to lift her up beside me. "If he couldn't get to the cottage--" he waved toward the orchard, "he couldn't turn Jules out."

I looked back the way Robbie had pointed - he was right. The rill had swollen enough so that the only way through the orchard and up to the cottage was the bridge.

"He'd have to have a wagon to take out Jules' things," said Peter.

I was still staring at the orchard, then looked back to the road that ran to the bridge. "I don't think those things belong to Jules," I said softly. "He's not a rich man, Passepartout said so. I think those things belong to the squire's son."

"So he'd come with a carriage," said Peter, as if he were thinking aloud. "Or on a horse. I've only seen the squire's son once or twice and he's always been on a horse. He'd have to bring two horses, one for him and one for Jules."

"Either way, he has to come through here." Henry jumped from the wall and walked the length of the stone bridge. The arch spanned the width of the rill . . . and the rains had swelled the water to lap at the upper edge of the earth banks. "Here's where we'll build the barricade."

I started to laugh, then realized he was serious. "A barricade? Henry, we can't build a barricade!"

"Why not?"

"We don't have a carriage or a wagon like the people in Paris," said Robbie.

"Or paving stones," Cherry was quick to add. Then she tilted her head and said slowly, "But there's a bit of loose stone near the quarry. Peter could lift them. And Robbie and me could pull the hand wagon."

"We're not supposed to go near the quarry," said Robbie, eyes wide. "Cherry, you know that!"

She met his stare and put her hands on her hips. "Are you a yellow coward or what? We have to save Jules!"

"She's right," said Henry, in a soft voice. "Because if we won't help him, who will?"

"We can use the handcart as the base, once we have everything here. Peter, if you and Henry can gather some of the branches from the orchard - there's sure to be some trees broken by the last storm - we can stack them over the handcart and around it." I jumped off the wall and stood in the center of the bridge. "We only have to fill it across here. He can't jump the rill, not with an extra horse or a carriage. The squire's son would have to stop."

Peter placed his elbows on the bridge and his chin in his hands. "No use - he'd just come get my 'da and Robbie's 'da and the land agent to help him shift everything."

"Not if we were here to stop him."

My heart fluttered in my chest and that word, 'heresy,' whispered somewhere in the back of my mind, but I tried to ignore it. "I thought we'd build the barricade, then hide to watch what happens."

"That's not how it's done, Pol," said Henry. "You heard what Jules said, even about the Miserables-people. If we build it, we have to man the barricade. We have to keep the squire's son away and make him go home, at least for tonight. If harvest starts tomorrow, like Papa says it will, the squire's son won't care about Jules."

It meant staying out at night, way past time to go in. We'd all be getting caned, even Cherry and me. "You mean . . . we have to keep him away from the barricade, like they do in the story, throw rocks or something."

"Apples." Robbie suddenly brightened. "We've tons of half-rotted apples. They don't hurt; they just make a mess, that's all."

The thought of throwing rotten apples made me feel better than throwing rocks. Until I realized we'd be throwing them at the squire's son.

"I have to get Em," I remembered. "I forgot when I heard about Jules leaving! Mama asked me to take her to lessons after noon. I can tell her that Jules asked us all to stay for a late lesson and that he had supper for us."

Henry grinned. "Good thinking, Pol. They won't start looking for us to be home until past twilight. Maybe the squire's son would have given up by then."

I nodded, as if agreeing, but all I could think was that maybe the squire's son would have turned us all out of our cottages by then.

Yep, we were all getting caned. If not worse.

****

End of Chapter Five

**** 


	6. 6 We man the barricade

****

**Chapter Six - _We man the barricade_**

It started to rain about an hour before dusk - not much at first, just the tail end of the summer showers. We'd loaded the cart with enough wood and stones so that not even Peter and I and Henry and Robbie could move it, even if we all pushed at once. We'd taken the longer tree limbs and blocked the sides of the bridge with those and piled everything high in the middle so the squire's son's horse couldn't leap it. It was a _really_ good barricade, even if it was our first one.

Henry and Peter crossed a lot of the branches on the pile, so where they stuck out in back we used grass as thatching and made a shelter from the rain. We took trips with the bucket down to the orchard and by now had a pretty big pile of half-rotten apples, and some good ones, which we ate when we started to get hungry. But we soon got tired of apples and the two slices of toasted bread I'd brought from our cottage were gone in a couple of bites. 

Em got sleepy and settled in my lap - we kept each other warm. Cherry Louise was making a neat pile out of the rotten apples. Henry and Robbie and Peter kept having apple-throwing contests until I told them I'd make them go back to the orchard in the rain and get more if we ran out. 

Waiting was very hard, especially in the rain and as it got darker. The stones soon lost the warmth of the day and were cold beneath me. I spread the thatching down to keep us off the chilled stone and stop us from slipping and that helped some. The wind wuthered at and around us - most of the barricade stopped the blast, but bits of the cold came through. I sat with my back to it to shield Em and Cherry Louise huddled closer.

Then the sky rumbled. Papa, who came from Devonshire, told me that no place in England had storms the likes of Shillingworth Magna, sometimes with dry lightning, sometimes with rain so hard and heavy a man would like to have his skin cut by the drops. This one started light but soon grew heavy. We'd not thought to have a lantern with us and Em didn't like the dark much, but she even less liked the sky-brightening flashes of light and the ear-splitting cracks, followed by the thunderous rumble. She cried and I cuddled her, singing one of mama's bedtime songs.

"Hush!" cried Henry. He grabbed a bucket of apples and stood out in the rain, stock-still, head tilted as if he heard something.

I quieted Em by sticking a good bit of apple in her mouth and listened, as did the others.

A peal of thunder deafened us, but in the brief after-rumble, we heard rhythmic slap of hooves along the muddy road. It was a horse - no, _two_ horses, at a steady pace. Not fast enough to outrun the storm. No, one would be leading the other. One rider and two horses.

"It's him," whispered Peter. "It's the squire's son."

We all looked at one another. My throat went dry and I found not only couldn't I say anything, I had nothing to say. Cherry Louise leaped to her feet and pointed at Henry. "You mustn't!" she cried, rain plastering her curls against her head and dripping down her face. "You mustn't. I'm telling! I'm telling Jules!"

She started running down the road, toward the cottage. I put down Em and struggled to my feet, but Peter was already after Cherry Louise.

"No, Peter, come back!" called Henry, who had scrambled atop the slick pile of branches we'd used to create the barricade. "Leave her. He's here!"

"Take care," I warned Henry, even as Peter came sliding back, his feet covered with mud. "Don't fall into the rill." I stood up and peered over the barricade, getting drenched in the process.

Another streak of light in the distant sky showed me the rider; a man was sitting upright on the horse's back, leading a second horse behind him. He had a long, dark coat, with a collar drawn up to his neck and was bare-headed. His hair was black, with sliver threads shining in it at the temples. His expression was grim, determined.

I was very suddenly unsure that this plan was going to work.

The lightning must have shown us to him as well, because I heard him cry out, "What the devil!" as he spurred his horse closer. As he reached us, he wheeled the horse to the right and to the left, but there was no way around - the rill had risen over its banks to form a swift-running stream. The only way across was the bridge.

And we were manning the barricade.

Henry stood aside the pile of wood, feet planted firmly, with Peter slightly behind him. Robbie tried to scramble up but was too small and had to content himself with handing up another bucket of apples to Peter.

"Halt!" cried Henry. "You can't pass! Go back!"

"What are you children up to?" cried the squire's son. "Get down from there, you'll hurt yourselves." He wheeled the horses around again, drawing closer. "What in God's name is this?"

"It's a barricade!" cried Peter, before Henry could hush him. "We've built it."

"That's - ah - very commendable. Shows remarkable sense of industry. Now, take it down."

"We won't," announced Henry. "You'll have to go back."

The squire's son seemed puzzled by that answer - although he would be, because I doubted anyone ever told him he couldn't do something, being a squire's son and all. "Now, see here--"

"No. You go back. You're not turning Jules out from his cottage. Not tonight. Not ever. We're manning the barricade. Aren't we?"

Robbie, Peter, and I echoed Henry's yell, but we were drowned out by a rumble of thunder overhead. The squire's son looked vaguely amused and annoyed by our defiance, as he asked, "What's this to do with Verne?"

"You're not taking Jules away," I hollered. "We won't let you."

It might very well have been the wrong thing to do - yell like that -- because he seemed surprised I was a girl. I suppose wet and dirty, we all looked the same. The storm made the horses uneasy and he rode up to a post at the end of the bridge, tying the spare horse there. The horse he was riding seemed to obey him, but was skittish, particular as it started up the slope of wet stone, toward our barricade at the center of the bridge.

"Don't come any closer," said Henry, reaching down to grab a rotten apple. "I'm warning you!"

The squire's son no longer looked amused. In the rain and the dark, his eyes seemed hard and cold as his horse danced before the stack of wood and stone with which we'd blocked the bridge. "This is your last chance," he called. "Take down that damn thing and let me pass. Or I'll make certain the lot of you are caned, even if I have to do it myself!"

I'm not sure whether Henry or Peter cried, "Apples!" Nor am I entirely certain which one of us threw first. At the moment, it was all I could do to keep myself perched on the slick pile of wood, while throwing the rotten fruit as far and as hard as I could.

Peter and Henry had improved from their practice - apples rained down around the squire's son like hailstones. They dissolved into waves of slush as they struck the hard stone of the bridge walls or floor, turned into a current of applesauce by the rain. The sound of impact seemed to frighten the horse, which danced from side to side again. The squire's son seemed torn between controlling the horse and raising an arm to protect himself from the onslaught. After the barrage of rotten fruit, he wheeled his horse away and headed off the bridge, back along the dirt road.

I hadn't seen whether any of the apples had hit him, but wasn't too breathless to cheer at his retreat. Robbie had climbed up onto the barricade beside me and we waited, apples in hand, watching as the squire's son paused some distance away. His face had grown pale and he sat straighter in his seat, looking this way and that as if studying the situation. I swear that he met my eyes at least once . . . and my heart stopped in my chest.

"Henry," I said softly, "we have to stop now."

The squire's son had the same look in his eyes that my papa had the day when the cows had gone dry, the horse threw a shoe, the fields were too-wet or too-dry, and I had just done something that he'd told me not to do. It was a dark look, the same look Peter had told me about one time, when his 'da had been drinking and hit him over and over for not cleaning the horse's stall well enough. It was a look that promised trouble. Bad trouble.

It frightened me.

But Henry didn't see that look, or didn't want to see it. He was laughing, throwing the occasional apple shorter than he could, as if he were trying to tempt the squire's son back into range. Peter and Robbie were the same way, laughing, like we'd won.

We'd lost - the look in the squire's son's eyes told me that much. We'd get caned, yes. Jules would be turned out and leave. And maybe not all of us would get turned out of our cottages, but one for sure. Just for a warning. Because this was a man who only gave one warning. And we hadn't listened.

There was a flash of light across the sky and another crack of thunder, so loud it sounded like the backbone of heaven had broken, my name echoing in the midst of it. I looked up wondering if what we'd done _had_ been heresy. Would the parson would condemn us in front of the congregation? Did this mean God was taking sides?

I heard my name again and half-turned to see Jules, wearing neither greatcoat nor hat and drenched to the skin, running along the muddy path to the bridge. He was calling to me and waving frantically and I waved back with a glad heart at seeing him. As he drew closer, I saw that he didn't seem glad to see us - he was shouting something against the wind.

I put a hand to my ear and tried to listen harder. I sounded like "M."

Em.

I'd forgotten about her - she'd fallen asleep under the shelter of the thatch. I looked down over the edge and saw the place she'd been was vacant, just an indentation in the thatch and some half-chewed apples. Then I saw the flash of her smock directly below me as she wove her way through the tangle of bricks and stone, through the heart of the barricade. She was moving toward the other side, trying to reach the half-squished apples that we'd thrown.

I looked up at what I thought was the sound of thunder - they were hoof beats. The squire's son had backed off the bridge and a distance away. Now he was galloping down the muddy road, heading for the bridge and the barricade. Surely he couldn't mean to jump it?

But then, it wasn't so high, really . . . not as high as we'd thought to make it. Looking at the size of the horse that he rode, I realized that. Just as I realized that Em would be through the barricade and onto the bridge at any second.

My sister would be trampled.

There was a scream - it might have been me. Henry grabbed my arm, dragging me sideways as Jules half-vaulted and half-scrambled over the slippery sticks of the barricade from behind me. He landed on the far side and slid on the wet, apple-covered paving. As Em emerged from the barricade, he caught her in his arms and rolled to the right of the bridge even as the horse approached.

I was sure he'd be trampled! My hands moved to my eyes to cover them but I had to look. I saw the squire's son pull back the horse's reins at the last minute, calling, "Verne!" The horse stepped to the right, but then back to the left, rearing high and neighing against a sky lit with fire, its cry followed by another thunderous boom. 

Jules grabbed hold of the barricade with one hand and lifted himself and Em from the stone floor of the bridge. He tried to push Em up towards me with his free hand. I reached down to grab her, but she screamed and held tightly to Jules' shirt and collar. The horse was above us, pawing the air with hard hooves as the squire's son shouted in an attempt to control it.

Henry was beside me. He grabbed one of Em's hands and I grabbed the other, freeing Jules from her grasp. We pulled so hard at her that I would have fallen backward off the barricade had Peter not grabbed hold of my smock, but we were out of danger.

All except for Jules. He was trapped between the barricade and the horse, which plunged and reared. Its hooves slipped on the wet and apple-strewn stone and it wouldn't turn, no matter how hard the squire's son yelled. At each subsequent peal of thunder, it screamed in terror and rose on its back legs again, hooves rising and falling dangerously near Jules.

I thought, at first, that he was trying to climb the barricade. Too late I realized that Jules was going over the side of the bridge and into the rill. I pulled my smock out of Peter's hold, yelled at him to grab my legs, then leaned as far as I could across the barricade, down to the edge of the stone wall, which was made of thick stone, but slick with rain. Jules had swung himself over the side and his fingers were slipping. I reached down and held out my hands. One of his chilled hands grasped mine, hard enough that I thought he'd broken my fingers, while his other hand continued to slip and slide on the stone as he tried to find a solid grip.

I gritted my teeth and held back a cry. Neither Henry nor Peter could get past me to reach Jules and the branches on which I was lying were already were starting to slide out from under me. If they came over the barricade to help, it would fall, Jules would drop into the swollen stream, and I'd probably be broken in two. Feeling Henry's hands grabbing one of my legs and Peter grabbing the other, I tried to tell them not to move. They stopped instantly when Henry shifted his weight and the barricade creaked and cracked beneath us. I heard Em crying and turned my head to see her held tightly by Robbie, behind the barricade. He was watching us with wide eyes, his hair plastered down on his forehead.

Jules' grip tightened on my hand, his right hand continuing to slap on the stone, catching hold and then slowly sliding off. I met his eyes and saw that he understood - I couldn't hold him. Even with both of my hands clasping his, I wasn't strong enough to pull him up. The boys couldn't help. I would hold Jules as long as they held me, but something would break soon - my hands, the boys' hold on me, or the barricade. 

Even now, he was dragging me forward, inch by inch, until the cold stone of the bridge was under my neck and my head was over the edge of the bridge. The water was not too far below, dark and swirling. If he fell into it, he'd probably break his legs - if not his neck - when he hit the shallow bottom, then be swept away to drown. 

If Jules didn't release his hold on me, I'd fall with him.

I saw that, too, in his eyes. His grasp on my hands lessened even as I screamed at him not to let go.

There was suddenly a shadow beside me - black, tall, dripping. A glove slapped down onto the stone, grabbing hold of Jules' flailing right hand, holding him aloft and dangling over the side of the stone bridge as Jules released my hands. I reached for Jules' left hand again and caught it, ignoring the sudden burning in my numb fingers. A glove was grabbing at the back of my neck, bunched up in my smock, keeping me from slipping forward even as the barricade groaned again. We pulled until Jules' chest was lying on the edge of the bridge, then he toppled over into the arms of the squire's son. A second later, I was lifted from the barricade and into the air, only to find myself sitting beside Jules, slick bridge stone beneath me.

Cold, shivering too hard to speak, I had no feeling in my arms, my hands, my legs. I was sprawled on the stone like one of Cherry Louise's dolls, boneless and uncaring. Above me, far above, was the face of the squire's son, with too-dark eyes and a grim look. He reached down a hand as if to help me to my feet. I raised my arm, but as soon as his fingers closed over my left hand, a wave of fire shot down my arm and into my body. A sound came out of my throat, half-a-gurgle, as the burn throbbed in my fingers and my hand and my head and the world went white and red.

And then black.

****

End of Chapter Six

**** 


	7. 7 I was wrong

****

**Chapter Seven - _I was wrong_**

It was warm. And soft. And smelled like summer.

My eyes half-opened in the dim light, a world of misty red. I stared at the shimmering threads of the screen and realized that I was wrapped in a blanket, lying on the bed in Jules' cottage. Through it I could see more light, which cast a shadow against the screen - the iron stove being stoked by a tall figure. Beside me were Em and Cherry Louise, curled around each other and fast asleep. At the bottom of the bed was Robbie, tucked into a ball and resting on a pillow.

My left hand was wrapped in a large, soft towel and felt heavy, as if it was twice its size. I didn't move it . . . I was afraid. A sleepy warmth seemed to surround me, the feeling starting down deep in my stomach and stretching outward.

I heard the cottage door open and felt the chill of a draught for an instant before it closed. The shadow by the stove straightened, then stood still. "The Aurora?"

"I saw an answering flare from Passepartout--" Jules' voice, soft. "The worst of the storm seems to have passed; there's just a light rain. Should be nothing but mist by the time he gets here with the doctor."

A chair leg was dragged across the floor. The first man was the squire's son - I recognized him by the height of the shadow when he straightened. His voice was less threatening than when I'd heard it raised against the storm, and the horse, and us. "I've warmed your tea." There was a sputtering sound from Jules, as he continued, "And added something to strengthen it a bit. That should warm you."

"If it doesn't leave me senseless," answered Jules, laughter in his voice. 

There was quiet, a long silence, but no scrape of a second chair - the squire's son was still standing by the fire.

"I'm sorry," said Jules. "About the children--"

"Trust you to turn a group of respectable English crofters' children into a revolutionary mob," said the squire's son. "Barricade, indeed!" It was a mocking tone, only half-serious.

"We were reading Dickens, 'A Tale of Two Cities.' And we talked about 'Les Miserables.' They--"

"Verne, that book's considered seditious in France _and_ England. You were discussing it with _children_? What were you thinking?"

"Can you think of a better subject to discuss with children than freedom and the rights of man?"

"Crofters' children who are barely old enough to read, if any of them can? Certainly. Much better subjects. British history. British literature--"

"Dickens _is_--"

"Grammar. Spelling. Geography." The squire's son sighed in exasperation. "Whatever it is that schoolmasters teach."

"I'm not a schoolmaster."

"Evidently not," agreed the squire's son.

There was another pause, followed by the clink of a china cup against a saucer. "Henry can read. I think Peter's got a bit of a start. And I've been helping Polly."

"That's the girl the schoolmaster had refused to teach."

"Yes."

My heart rose in my throat when I heard my name - it set my stomach squirming to think that the squire's son knew who I was . . . and what I'd done. I waited to hear what he might say, certain in that mist of not-quite-feeling that he'd announce that he'd already found a new tenant for my family's cottage.

"We'll right that matter after harvest. Rebecca's told me she's found a suitable candidate, an ex-governess I gather, who holds some radical notions about teaching children to think for themselves or some such nonsense. In any case, she'll assure no one will be denied access to the schoolroom."

I was stunned by the news. I'd be allowed to return to school. With a lady schoolmaster? A _governess_? It was almost too much to be believed.

If we weren't turned out of our cottage . . . .

My thinking was all-sorts, scattered so that at first I wasn't paying attention to what Jules was saying. But the hard note in his voice brought me back to enough sense to listen more closely.

"--Of course. You'll take care of everything." The china clinked, and then clinked again and there was a long pause before he continued, that hard note softening a bit "How's Polly's hand?"

"Two fingers broken on the on the left - the thumb is fine, thank heavens - always tricky to reset that. They've been splinted until the doctor arrives. I've given her a touch of brandy in some tea while she was half-asleep, that should keep her quiet."

I felt uncomfortable, as if they were peering at me through the silk screen, even as the squire's son continued, "Nothing from the boys, yet - they'll have reached home by now and are probably out in the fields with their families, trying to save the corn. I gather their parents will come to collect the rest, once they've left the fields and have gotten word."

"They mustn't be punished," said Jules.

"Not punished? They lied to their parents, constructed a blockage in the middle of an essential bridge, pelted me with apples--"

"They--what?"

"It isn't among the worst attacks I've ever had to fend off, but I'll admit it's one of the more ingenious. Particularly that lanky boy - Peter, is it? Deadly aim with a soft-core, I promise you. He'll be one to watch." There was another pause. "That infant was nearly trampled, I was almost thrown, you were for the wash, as was that Polly-girl . . . ."

"Almost," said Jules softly. "The worst that's happened was the bridge was blocked, I've scraped a shin, and Polly's broken two fingers. If there's damage, Fogg, I'll pay for it -- don't blame the children for trying to protect me."

"I'll not interfere with whatever their parents decide," the squire's son said, with the same firmness of tone my papa had when not even my Em's tears could sway him from a decision. "As for blaming them - I'd put them on the New Year's honor list for trying to protect you, if it were within my power. As it's not, I'll keep them out of your way, to protect _them_." There was a sound of protest from Jules, and the squire's son added, "You've hardly a track record worth mentioning when it comes to your treatment of friends who've acted out of concern for your welfare."

"They didn't kill in my name."

"Neither did we."

"You're lying."

The accusation was made in a cold voice, bereft of belief. The sound of it was so chill and sudden, it completely awakened me from the comforting warmth in which I'd been drifting.

"If anyone was killed," said the squire's son, "their blood's on our hands, not yours. Come Judgment, you've no sins to answer for but your own foolish, pig-headed obstinacy."

The chair scraped back from the table; I heard Jules rise to his feet. "I never asked you to kill for me."

"If memory serves, neither of us offered. The bounty on your head was financed by the League, _not_ by us. We merely made a counter offer - no one who tried to collect that bounty would live to spend it. Some learned by example, others learned only by experience."

"H-how many . . . learned by experience?"

"Seven."

"And how many times were you and Rebecca nearly killed?"

There was another pause, longer this time - I was certain there'd be no answer. And then--

"Twice. And only just, the second time. An accident with a fuse."

It made no sense to me, neither the words nor the tone of their voices, which seemed both angry and sad. Of the two, the squire's son's voice was colder, harder.

"I've nothing to say on my own behalf," he continued. "But Rebecca deserves better from you. This petulant silence is driving her to distraction; you've treated her abominably."

"You just told me I'd nearly gotten her killed - I think she'd be better off without endangering herself in trying to protect me."

"Damn you! The one has nothing to do with the other."

"Hasn't it?" The chair leg scraped again; Jules' shadow was seated. "I know the truth now - I'm an albatross. This was just the League's latest and it's not going to stop. They're going to keep coming after me until they get me . . . or until I'm dead. Maybe the ones Passepartout mentioned were right, I'm a target as long as I live--"

"He should never have--"

"If I were dead, it would end. You and Rebecca and Passepartout wouldn't be risking your lives trying to protect me from the League."

Another silence. 

"You've not given that serious consideration, I hope."

"Consideration, yes. Serious consideration . . . no. I need to disappear. They'll look for me here, or in Paris, or even Nantes. Perhaps I could lose myself in America or Canada?"

"And do . . . what?"

"Teach." That suggestion was met by a harsh snort of laughter from the squire's son. "And write, eventually. If I hide, keep to myself, they won't find me and no one else will be endangered by my presence."

Jules was talking about leaving. It wasn't the squire's son driving him away, but something else, something I didn't understand. It had something to do with being afraid.

They had stopped talking. I'd chosen a bad time to get out of the bed - as a very-strained silence had fallen again - but I did so anyway. Holding the blanket closed around me with one hand, I tiptoed quiet as a mouse to the edge of the screen and peered around it.

Both Jules and the squire's son were down to their shirtsleeves, although Jules had lost his waistcoat as well. Jules was sitting at the table; his hands were wrapped so completely around one of the fragile teacups that it almost disappeared from view.

The squire, however, was still standing by the stove. The flat of his hand was up against the wall and he had his back to Jules, but I could see his profile in the dim light of the stove and the candle on the table. "You've thought this through."

If there had been anger in their voices earlier, there was no sign of it in their faces. Their expressions were hard and grim, like Papa's had been last year after the horse had stumbled and his leg had been too badly broken to mend.

"Yes."

"You _do_ realize you've over-looked two flaws in your plan?"

Jules looked up at the squire, puzzled. "What?"

"You won't--" And then the squire's son stopped speaking, turning in an instant and fixing me with a glare, as if suddenly discovering that I was there.

I swear that I hadn't made a sound, not a creak or a whisper, and I barely breathed . . . there was no way he could have heard me. I stared right back at him, my bound hand held to my chest and my other clutching the blanket over my torn, damp shift.

Jules was startled enough that he nearly knocked over his chair as he rose and took a step toward me. "Polly, you should be in bed--"

"No, Verne . . . leave her," said the squire's son.

It was the kind of voice you'd expect from a squire's son, or a squire . . . you obeyed because you had to obey, there wasn't any choice in the matter. Jules stopped and looked at the squire's son as if he didn't understand, but the squire's son didn't look at him.

He looked at me, was _still_ looking at me. And however grim the line of his lips, I could have sworn I saw the hint of a curve at the edge of one lip, as if he were trying not to smile.

That kindness disappeared beneath a stern look at he covered the distance between us in two steps - he had very long legs, like the stilt-walkers at the fair. I saw Jules start to move, as if he were going to intercept him, but the squire's son was too fast. I looked up and up and up and saw those very hard eyes staring down at me.

"Polly, is it?"

"Yes, sir," I answered in a small voice. My knee began to bend, as I automatically started to curtsey, but stopped myself when I realized that my shift and the blanket might not hold if I tried. I would have bowed my head, but for some reason I couldn't look away from those eyes.

Nor, really, did I want to. I summoned up my mad, as my mama calls it, and I stared right back at him. I had good reason to be angry. This was the squire's son, who was going to turn Jules out from the cottage and make him go away.

Only . . . he wasn't, was he? Yes, he was the squire's son, but from what I'd heard from them talking, leaving Shillingworth was Jules' idea. Jules was leaving because . . . well, I didn't understand the because, but it _was_ his idea. The squire's son wasn't to blame. 

I'd gotten it wrong. I'd gotten it all wrong.

Em had nearly been trampled, Jules had nearly been drowned, and we'd built a barricade and - and - and -

And the squire's son knew this. He knew _all_ of this. There was no lying, no twisting of the truth. He knew what we'd done.

He stared down at me with those fire-dark eyes and I knew for sure we'd be turned out of our cottages. 

****

End of Chapter Seven

**** 


	8. 8 I finish the book

****

**Chapter Eight - _I finish the book_**

"Do you know what you did tonight?" asked the squire's son, in a slow, quiet voice.

I turned my head, hearing Jules say, "Fogg, there's no need--"

But the squire's son held up his hand toward Jules to stop him and I found myself back under the intense scrutiny of those eyes, even as he clasped his hands behind him again.

"Yes, sir."

"And what did you do?"

I swallowed - no lying, he knew the truth after all. "We built a barricade on the bridge, sir, to keep you from turning Jules out of his cottage. It was my fault, really, sir, none of the others are to be blamed. I thought you was the cause, sir, and I got it wrong. It was my idea to try and stop you." I managed to tear my gaze away for a second, to glance at Jules, who looked surprised, before finishing weakly, "I thought you were making Jules go away."

I ran out of words; all of a sudden, it was like there was no more air. My lips closed on the emptiness and I stared back at the squire's son. There was a dull ache in my left hand, but it dissolved into insignificance when I met his gaze. I now knew what the pastor meant now when he talked about the day of almighty judgment and the gaze of God upon the sins of the wicked.

"And what do you think will happen now?"

I had been _very_ wicked.

"You'll turn us out of our cottages."

My voice had been barely a whisper. Even as Jules said, "Fogg, no--," I found the words again, enough to say, "But it wasn't their fault, none of it. It was mine, sir. Send me away, but not mama and papa and Em, or Henry, and Cherry Louise, and the others. Send me to the workhouse, sir, but don't make them leave. It's mid-harvest, and you'll be needing the workmen, you see. And my Papa and Peter's 'da and Henry's 'da know Shillingworth land better than any, sir. You'd not do better with others. Truly, sir. It was my fault and I'm to blame."

Jules was sputtering angrily, half-sentences and words. He made to move toward me again and the squire's son raised his hand to stop him. "Hold your peace, Verne. I'm not _quite_ through." The squire's son looked down at me and placed his hand on my left shoulder. I nearly jumped at the touch, even through the blanket. His grip was gentler than I'd expected - I'd seen him handle the reins of the horse in the middle of a storm, after all. And I _had_ committed heresy.

"You knew what would happen," he said, in that same, steady voice. "You knew that you'd endanger your life here, and the life of your family and friends--"

"Oh, no, sir, it _was_ me--"

"You _knew_," he repeated, with the certitude of God himself and any hope of protest fled me, "so . . . why did you do it?"

It seemed so very, very foolish, now that I knew better. But when I'd started this, I hadn't known the truth. There was no shame in it. And if the warmth in my cheeks meant they were red, I'd rather it be with anger.

"With his being hurt and all, sir, it wasn't right for Jules to be turned out, not after he'd been so kind to us and all. I thought you'd meant to turn him out and drive him off, sir. And you'd no right to do that to Jules, no right at all."

The squire's son then did something that surprised me completely - he winked at me.

While I stared at him, open-mouthed, he straightened - his expression stern once again - and half-turned to Jules. "You can't stop yourself from caring for the welfare of others, Verne, just as you can't stop others from caring about your well-being - those are the two flaws in your plan. There's not a place in the world you could go without getting involved, short of Utopia . . . and I'd wager even odds you'd have the populace building barricades out of the gold paving stones by sundown."

Once again, I was at a loss. I looked at Jules and found he wasn't much better off. He sat down in his chair, nearly falling from it, as he wasn't really watching where he was going, and that was because he was staring at me. "You built the barricade . . . to stop Fogg from turning me out?"

I looked to the squire's son and his ever-so-slight nod gave me nerve enough to speak. "It wasn't me, alone . . . it were all of us, together. We didn't know you'd wanted to leave, Jules. You'd told me that you didn't and I wasn't to know otherwise, was I?" Oddly enough, I found my mad coming back. "You didn't have to lie. If you'd not wanted to stay with us, you could have said so and we'd not have built the barricade to keep away the squire's son."

"Verne's already built a barricade to keep me away," said the squire's son. "And Passepartout. And Rebecca. And anyone else who values his friendship. Even you and your friends, Polly. He might have been better served to have read you 'Robinson Crusoe.'"

His words didn't make much sense to me, as I'd not seen another barricade anywhere near Shillingworth, but Jules ducked his head as if someone had slapped him. "You and Passepartout were nearly killed, and then Rebecca--"

"'Nearly,' being the operative word. You had a bad scare, we all did. And I'm not the less guilty for not having foreseen the League trying this tactic." Jules half-rose from his chair, sputtering a protest, but the squire's son waved him back to his seat. "No, Rebecca feels much the same. But to cut yourself off from the world, to hide . . . that will protect no one. It's not an answer, Verne, it's a form of surrender."

"Then what _is_ the answer?" asked Jules, carefully watching the squire's son.

"To fight for your beliefs and to cherish your allies." The squire's son gestured toward me. "But you already know that - that's what you taught the children."

Jules stared at the squire's son, then at me, then at the floor, one hand on the back of the chair and the other rubbing his chin. "I . . . have been behaving like . . . an utter ass," he announced, after a long moment. He rose from the chair and walked toward the squire's son, his hand out-stretched. "I owe you an apology, my friend."

The squire's son took Jules' hand and shook it firmly, then dropped a hand on his shoulder. "Accepted. Although when you make amends with Rebecca, I'll expect you to endure her displeasure - and a possible black-eye - with good grace."

I thought Jules' shame-faced smile seemed to fade for a second, and then he smiled. "And I owe Passepartout an apology as well. He's taken excellent care of me, Fogg. I don't know how you did without him."

"Neither do I," answered the squire's son. "Although, in self-defense I _have_ been learning to brew a tolerable cup of coffee. Rebecca's is execrable."

Jules had apologized, but I didn't know why or what for, and the squire's son seemed too happy to be daunting to me now. But I saw what this meant and somewhere deep inside, my heart sank to my toes. When I coughed, they both looked at me in surprise, as if they'd forgotten I was there. 

"Does this mean you're going away?" I asked Jules.

Jules dropped down to one knee in front of me and placed a hand on my shoulder. "Yes, I am. Paris is my home." Then he looked up at the squire's son and smiled. "But I'll be back, if Fogg and Rebecca don't mind a guest from time to time."

"We'd be delighted," said the squire's son. "You've always had an open invitation to visit as often as you wished."

"There. You see?"

I smiled a little bit, because I was happy that he'd be back. Not that I was any too certain that me and my friends and our families would still be there. I took a deep breath and forced myself to face the squire's son, "Will we be turned out, sir?"

The squire's son coughed into his hand and turned his head away, as if considering the question . . . although I was half-certain he was hiding a smile. "Well, it _is_ harvest, as you've said--"

"You're heartless, Fogg," said Jules, with a laugh. He touched a hand to my cheek and promised very seriously, "No one's getting turned out of their cottage at Shillingworth Magna, no matter what Fogg says. If he ever gives you any trouble about that, you get word to Miss Rebecca."

"Thank you, Verne, for upsetting long-standing English landlord-tenant practices in place since, oh, say . . . the signing of the Magna Carta."

I looked up at the squire's son's words, but he was smiling as he spoke. Jules rose to his feet and gave a mock bow toward the squire's son. "Happy to be of service."

It was then that I heard a sound like wash flapping on the line on a windy day - softer, perhaps at first, but growing louder. They heard it as well, because Jules ran toward the door, calling, "I'll signal Passepartout."

"Good man," said the squire's son. He stood for a moment, watching until Jules left the cottage and disappeared into the darkness, then said softly, "The doctor said he might never walk without a cane." Then he turned to me and added, "I suppose we have you and your friends to thank for that. You must have kept Jules hopping."

"Em takes a lot of looking-after," I agreed, remembering the horse rearing back as she darted back and forth beneath its legs. "But you kind of saw that."

"Indeed I did." His expression became somewhat grim again and I turned my attention toward the doorway, wondering if it might be better if I went to look for Jules and Passepartout. "Polly?"

I swallowed and looked back at him. "Yes, sir?"

"You put yourself, and your friends and family, not to mention Verne and myself, in grave danger . . . all based on a misunderstanding."

"Yes, sir."

"That being said, you showed uncommon bravery in trying to save the life of your young sister, as well as Verne. I don't doubt your parents will find some suitable punishment for your actions and I won't be moved to interfere, but I want you to know I've no intention in turning any of the crofters out of their cottages, now or in the future. I'm a man of my word and will stand by that pledge, if you can promise me one thing."

I'd somehow felt a little taller at his words, but now my heart was in my throat. "Yes, sir?"

The squire's son leaned lower and said sternly, "No more barricades. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." 

"Good." He held out his hand and I shook it - it was as if I were a grownup and we'd just made a deal. Then he released my hand . . . and I was suddenly a little crofter's girl again, covered by a blanket and nursing a broken hand, facing the squire's son. "Shouldn't you be abed, until the doctor arrives?"

Again, I nearly curtseyed and just stopped myself. "Yes, sir." I turned and walked toward the red silk screen.

"Polly?" I turned when he called my name and saw that he had picked up holding the book that Jules had tried to give me earlier, 'A Tale of Two Cities.' "This is the book you were reading with Jules?"

"Yes, sir."

The squire's son opened it at the marked page. "It seems you're quite near the end. It would be a shame not to finish it before Verne returned to Paris." He looked up at me, the book still open in his hand. "I'll be glad to help you finish it, if you'd like." When I didn't answer at once, he added quickly, "Unless you're too tired--?"

"No, sir. Not at all, sir." I moved my towel-bound hand beyond the blanket to show him. "But I can't hold the book, sir."

"I think I could be of assistance. I've been told I was quite a page-turner, in my time." He smiled, as if he'd said something funny, and then pulled Jules' chair away from the table and gestured down at it. "Sit here, by the light."

It seemed a hundred miles stretched between the chair and me. I walked slowly, still not certain what to think about the squire's son. But I remembered the promise he'd made, that he'd treated me like a grownup, and it seemed less odd that he pushed the chair in for me when I sat down - like I was a lady - and poured a cup of tea, which he placed at my right hand. He carefully set the book down before me, adjusted the towel-sling that held my left hand against my chest, and waited.

I began to read. 

It had been a fortnight since Henry had told us of the Frenchman in the orchard and I had read aloud, with Jules' help, for many of those days. I could not help my voice being soft at first, having the reminder of his shadow on the book as he followed at my shoulder, but grew bolder with each page. He didn't correct me too often or at all harshly and there were times when his words made more sense than Jules, who was, after all a Frenchman who didn't always speak English the way it should be said.

The squire's son turned the pages and helped me when I stumbled over a word. I continued reading even as Jules, Passepartout, and the village doctor arrived. The squire's son chided me to concentrate on the words when the doctor bathed my fingers, dried them, and bound them to sticks. When the doctor pressed on my fingers and I couldn't see for the tears in my eyes, the squire's son wiped them away with his handkerchief and told me to keep reading.

I read while the doctor was there and after he'd gone. I read as the candle sputtered and died and Passepartout opened the window shutters to let in the first rays of sunlight. I read of the trip in the tumbrel and of the end of Sydney Carton and the squire's son wiped my tears again with his handkerchief, even though there were no more words left to read.

At that, the book was done and with its ending passed the adventure of the Frenchman, and the barricade, and my ninth summer at Shillingworth Magna.

****

The end

**** 


End file.
